Gluten-Free Wheat-Free Chocolate Chip Scones

It was ridiculous how nervous she was. It was only a class. A painting workshop. It wasn't as if she was entering a world unknown. She knew this world. Art school was only, what, fifteen years ago? Wrong tactic. Fifteen years is a lifetime ago. She shook it off, pushed the door open with her left hip and met the familiar aromatics of turpentine and linseed oil, the clatter of wooden easels and scrape of chipped metal stools as painters staked out their territory.

A gaggle of older women who obviously knew one another nattered about flea markets and ringed the front of the classroom where a beat up French easel sat unopened on the floor next to a brown paper grocery bag stuffed with ragged brushes and a dented roll of green spattered paper towels.

She angled toward the unoccupied far corner near the window, hoping for a wedge of natural light and some semblance of anonymity and breathing room. Painting among people was an unnatural state. To take such a solitary, contemplative practice and share it with strangers in a public space was difficult. If not impossible. In order to paint well one had to lose oneself- forget the world, shed all self-consciousness, surrender to some mysterious, invisible process. Unlikely in a group chattering about Dancing with the Stars. She tugged the brim of her baseball cap down over her eyes, tuned out the chit chat, and set up her canvas.

This is a mistake, she thought. I shouldn't have come here. I can't do this. She squatted next to her canvas bag, pulled out tubes of titanium white, cobalt blue, cadmium yellow and red. She thought about art school and how it had been the same. The easy camaraderie of everyone else. Her awkward isolation. Her big dumb need not to be noticed. Her craving to be unobservable.

Then she heard his voice.

She straightened up and turned toward the flutter of greetings and palpable affability emanating from the front of the class room. She caught only a glimpse of his plaid flannel shirt and the flash of a large Dunkin' Donuts coffee he placed on a nearby stool before he knelt to unpack his easel. She thought she heard him say something about The Fisher King.

What a weird movie, one of the women sniffed, you liked it? I didn't get it. And I usually like that Jeff Bridges.

I thought I'd start with a demo today, he said, standing up and turning toward the class. Sound good?

His keen blue eyes scanned the crowded room. She tried not to meet his glance. She didn't expect him to be so... So, what? Interesting? She crossed her arms and inched forward with the others to get a better view. He was washing his canvas with a swath of warm ocher and talking about values and laying in dark shapes. He joked with a mustached man who asked him the same question twice, then paused to sip coffee and wipe his brush. His back was toward her. She tried not to notice the way his shoulders fit into his shirt.

Karina's Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Scones Recipe

B Karina Allrich March 2010.

These wheat-free scones are a tad cakier than your average g-free vegan scone- which is often crumbly without the benefit of eggs for binding. A bit more brown sugar and some vanilla rice milk help the crumble factor in these tasty little numbers. But if you can use eggs, use two free-range organic eggs instead of the replacer, and gauge the liquid to dry ratio. You may need less rice milk, so add it slowly; mix until you get a smooth dough.